A.S. Gillott owners & appreciation club

Any photos as it sounds great?

^ that :)

I'm also resisting asking what size it is.

I’ll take a pic or two when I get in.
Frame is hanging in my Guilt Loft ™

The sizing is odd as the BB is so high.
I think it was probably built to do double duty on the track.

Fleur de Lys

Also looking forward to pics!

The Gillott in the Guilt Gable.?
Can't wait.

I think I paid £75 for this about 15 years ago.
I built it up with modern and 80s track stuff (Superbe Pro chainset and Dura Ace stem 😋) and rode the crap out of it for a few years. Then I wiped out on it and dented the DT with the brake and decided to restore it.
I started collecting bits for it, then got sidetracked by another Gillott, then a Tout Mavic Cougar, babies, life etc.

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There are some issues with it to be sure.
Firstly it’s too small for me.
It’s had a really bad TT replacement which left the ST visibly bulged from overheating and a blob of brass in one of the head lug windows.
The seat cluster ears are knackered
The BB was reamed out for a BW unit BB.
The mudguard eyes may not be original
I think a derailleur hanger might have been brazed on then badly hacked off.

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23” TT (ctc) 22.5”ST (ctt)

I showed it to Ron Cooper when he was at Colourtech - they were spraying my Cougar and he confirmed he’d built it, he was a gent and seemed genuinely pleased to see it again and have a chat.

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I collected some seriously nice bits to build it up with, when things like NOS CL pedals could be had for £50, I think the chainset was £100 😳

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Very nice and great that Ron confirmed it as one of his.

Whoa so nice and love the quirks too. Those components are super cool. I'll start the chant... build it up, build it up!

This is the one I’m doing first.

Now I’m a grumpy old man, I can have a grumpy old man bike.

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That is superb, What age is this one?

1952

I only bought it because I’d put a wanted ad up for a head badge.
Someone phoned me out of the blue and said you can have a head badge for a tenner but you’ll have to take the whole bike.
It was in Bristol, I drove there and back from Peckham the next day.
😂

Unfortunately it had a bent TT.
Barrie Witcomb replaced it for me when he was still in Deptford.

That's pretty cool also. Got very gothic lugs.

Yeh. The windows in the lugs really change the look from the plain spearpoint.
Pattern is called Connoisseur and is pretty rare apparently.

I’m going to get this refinished by Argos as soon as I have funds.

Superb purchase.
Was going to ask whether you knew the model name as the lugs are so unusual.
Argos will do a great job with it.

I’m sure they will.
But part of the reason I’ve not progressed with this is losing what’s left of the original paint and especially the transfers.
The repro ones look too clean and slick for me, I’ve actually been working on some artwork for the roundel and plan to get Lloyds to print me up a couple.

I’d love to see pics of the repro decals up close. I’m pretty much sold on getting my own roundel done but not sure about the DT and fork ones.
Argos can do the double box-lining, I’m going to stick with the original understated colours.

Connoisseur

That is fantastic. Mark Stevens has a similar one in his collection I've oggled in the past https://www.flickr.com/photos/makfreak/albums/72157675522699802 The cutouts really lift the spear design. I'm getting repro decals for the 1960 Nervex Pro that I have with Argos currently. I'll post close-ups.

I hadn’t checked on Steven’s Gillott Hoard for a while.
When I got the frame I contacted him, he didn’t have one yet and he almost bit my arm off for it, wanted to trade for a Hetchins etc. There was v little info online back then and he told me the model name.

I see his is bent to fuck (way worse than mine was) - I guess they didn’t make many. Simplex shifter boss and (Agrati?) Simplex rear drop outs like mine.

I know it’s a tiny detail, but this is my beef.
The originals are hand drawn and lettered, the repros look too clean, line weights are wrong, and not hand lettered.

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I’ve had a crack at it.
Unfortunately I need to scan it, then trace it into illustrator or something.
So I can make a vector pdf.

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That red Connoisseur is the same year, mine was made a bit before 522851 vs
522972

Great stuff.

For the Hobbs “Criterium” script decal (my wife did for my birthday!) I gave her a photograph and she used photoshop to get the outline and then smooth it. Good thing about that one was there wasn’t much curvature of the tube to deal with - quite a small decal along the side of the top tube.

I’m going to pretend you haven’t shown me how off the roundel is. Or maybe by 1960 they started using typeface letters :)